


warm and safe

by arielmagicesi



Category: RWBY
Genre: Asexual Character, Coming Out, F/F, Past Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arielmagicesi/pseuds/arielmagicesi
Summary: It's a rainy day, so Team RWBY takes the afternoon off from training for the Vytal tournament. Yang curls up in bed and when Blake comes in, freezing cold from the rain, she offers her to cuddle under the warm blanket with her. Takes place between Volumes 2 and 3.





	warm and safe

Yang preferred sunny days, when she could go out and sweat and burn up in training. She was at her best then. But she could get along with rainy days, too. It was the weekend, so no classes, and after team training in the morning Ruby declared the rest of the day off for the team, too.

Blake and Weiss weren’t thrilled about that. “ _No_ body else is taking a day off _this_ close to the Vytal Festival,” Weiss said.

“Weiss, rest is important, too,” Ruby said.

“Plus, I definitely saw Team JNPR lounging in the courtyard yesterday playing board games,” Yang added.

“Well, their team is headed by _Jaune,_ ” Blake said, from where she was standing in the corner. “Of course they’re not doing any work.”

“Aww, Blake, that isn’t fair!” Ruby said, crossing her arms. “Jaune is a great team leader, I think. He’s just… not as… skilled as the rest of us! Anyway, we’ve worked twice as hard as any other team at Beacon for the past week. We need a break, too. And anyway it’s a rainy day and I’m tired!”

Yang reached over and grabbed Ruby’s head in a hug. “You’re right, sis,” she said. “Day off today, then back to work tomorrow. Personally, I’m gonna go take a shower and get into bed with some of my new magazines.”

“Ugh, don’t you ever read anything with substance?” Blake said. Yang glanced over and saw the hint of a smile in Blake’s eyes. The days were gone when the two of them genuinely fought about whether or not Yang was serious enough. Now they just teased each other.

“Like those dreary vampire books you read have any substance,” she fired back, and Blake’s smile grew a little more noticeable.

“I’m gonna go to the new weapons exhibit in the gallery,” Ruby said. “Weiss, d’you wanna come with me?”

“No, thank you,” Weiss said. “I’m going to get some real work done. Professor Port assigned us an essay on the hunting habits of different species of Grimm, in case you forgot.”

“Who can think about essays this close to the Vytal Festival?” Ruby said, stretching her arms in the air in excitement. “I wanna just think about cool weapons and fighting!”

Weiss rolled her eyes. “You are _so_ predictable, Ruby.”

Yang smiled and ruffled Ruby’s hair. “Have fun with your weapons exhibit,” she said. “And uh, have fun with your essay, Weiss.”

“Essays are not supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to be work.”

“What about you, Blake?” Yang asked.

“Me?” Blake said. She’d been trying to sneak out of the room while Ruby and Weiss had been arguing. “I’m, uh. Gonna go out.”

“In this weather?”

“Yeah. I, uh, I think I’m gonna go to the library.”

Yang knew what that meant- she was going to try and find out more about what the White Fang was doing. She was going to investigate. And Yang didn’t know what to say to stop her. It wasn’t the same as telling her that she deserved a break. It had to do with her past, and frankly, Yang still didn’t fully understand it.

So, like an idiot, she said, “OK, have fun getting new books!” in her fake cheery voice, as if they both didn’t know that Blake was going anywhere but the library. And then Blake left and Ruby and Weiss left the room still arguing about the merit of essays and Yang let her shoulders slump.

She walked up from the exercise room, through the empty staircase to the dorms. Outside the big glass windows, rain was streaming, making the glass blurry. It made the world seem like a water-color painting, gentle and soft, like the ones Ruby’s mother had done when Yang was little. Yang had always liked to pour tons of paint on her palette and smear it over the canvas with her fingers, making brightly colored messes. Ruby would just paint badly-depicted scenes of battles against Grimm. But Summer Rose would make elegant watercolors. That was the world today- a quiet painting.

Yang could forget that bad things were almost certainly coming for all of them.

After taking a shower, she changed into a warm sweater and pajama pants and curled up under her blanket. Blake’s bed was hanging precariously over hers in the makeshift bunk bed, and Yang had strung some lights under it for days just like this. She turned them on and grabbed some of her unread Teens of Remnant magazines from under her bed.

It had been ages since she’d had free time to read mindless fluff, and it felt worlds apart from her current reality. Pictures of male models sprawled across the pages, with captions about celebrity gossip, and fashion tips. Yang let out a sigh.

None of it mattered. She was so tired.

She flipped through, to a photo of a guy straddling a sleek motorcycle. Now _that_ was what she liked to read those magazines for. She loved the funny gossip, but mostly she loved the aesthetics. She wanted to be like those girls in the Huntress photoshoots with guns slung over their shoulders and jeans hanging at their hips, and she wanted to be like those guys ready to ride sexy vehicles off into the sunset.

Yang curled her legs closer to her chest, thinking about how much she’d stared at some of those Huntress photo-spreads. It wasn’t just because she’d wanted to be a Huntress, either. She’d really… liked seeing those women. It wasn’t what she was supposed to want, she knew. Her dad would always tell her that one day she’d grow up and find the perfect guy, the perfect boyfriend, husband, man, father of her children. It annoyed her so much. Even Qrow assumed Yang wanted boys, snapping at her to keep away from boys when she went out into town.

Ruby was good in that regard. Ruby didn’t seem to want anyone, and the biggest crush she’d ever had was on her sniper-scythe.

But Yang had spent so long feeling bad about wanting girls. She covered it up, of course. She could cover anything up, and anyway she was sunshiney most of the time. It had been a lot easier to ignore her feelings before she came to Beacon.

Not that she was going to spend the afternoon thinking about Blake Belladonna.

Although she _was_ so worried about her. God, Blake was so good at hurting herself and it hurt Yang most of all. It was a kind of pain Yang had never known before, the way she felt about Blake. It was something she couldn’t just turn into firepower.

Worst of all, Blake was carrying so much more in her than she let on. Yang knew that she had horrors in her past, that she had difficulty trusting anyone. It was strange to Yang, who gave her trust away like candy. She would keep all her trust inside her if it meant that Blake would feel safe with her, but she knew it didn’t work that way. Blake had been through things that meant she might never feel safe.

Yang had been through some pretty harsh things, too. But she didn’t think it was the same.

She sighed and pulled her blanket closer, flipping to a gossip article in her magazine. At least those were funny. She thought she’d seen the Schnee name somewhere in the table of contents… now _that_ would be entertaining…

The door slammed open.

Yang’s head popped up. Blake was at the door, dripping wet and looking ready to murder someone.

“Remind me to never. Go out. In the rain. Again.”

“Blake, are you OK?” Yang tore off her blanket and got up.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Blake said. She peeled off her scarf and thin jacket, while Yang held out her hands tentatively, wanting to help but not being sure how.

Then Blake shivered and let out a full-body shudder, spraying water everywhere.

Yang laughed and blinked water out of her face. “You sure you’re OK?”

“Ugh, I’m sorry,” Blake said. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I just hate rain so much.”

_Then why did you go out in it_ , Yang thought, but didn’t say out loud.

“I know,” Blake muttered, as if she could read Yang’s mind. “Why did I go out in the rain if I hate it. I know. I’m an idiot.”

“Aw, come on,” Yang said, climbing back onto her bed and grabbing her blanket. “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

Blake gave her a look.

“I’m worried they’re going to find me before I find him. Them,” she amended quickly.

Oh. So they weren’t pretending she’d gone to the library anymore.

There were a million things Yang could say, like _they won’t find us don’t worry_ , and _you’re so much stronger now than you were before_ , and _you’re safe here at Beacon_ , and _if everything else fails I will protect you with my life_ , but she didn’t think any of those things would help.

Instead she said, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Blake said. She was standing there, water clinging to her, in nothing but her tank top and pants, staring at Yang with too much sincerity in her eyes. Yang swallowed.

“We still have time to rest,” she said. “One afternoon off isn’t enough time for the White Fang to do something evil.”

Blake looked like she was going to argue, then sighed.

“You’re right,” she said. “I just want to dry off and be warm. I hate rainy days. You just can’t get warm.”

It was cute to see her complaining about something normal, so Yang, who felt neutral about rain, said, “I know, right? All I want is sunny days forever.”

Blake smiled. “You should come to Menagerie. The weather is always so beautiful there.”

“I’d love that,” Yang said.

Blake ran a hand through her hair, tugging restlessly at her bow. She was always awkward when she talked about being a Faunus, like she was terrified she would get yelled at.

“I’m- I should- I’m gonna go change into some dry clothes,” she said, and dipped into the bathroom.

Yang let out a long, dragged-out sigh.

_Blake likes boys, Blake likes boys, Blake likes boys. She likes Sun and Sun likes her and you should just let them be happy._

Even if lately, Blake just seemed kind of annoyed with Sun, and she’d said to Ruby, once, which Ruby had told Yang later, that she thought Sun was too immature to really date. That she kind of just wanted to be friends now.

“Yeah, Blake says Sun is really immature,” Ruby had said to Yang, whose interest had spiked up the second she’d brought up the topic of Blake and Sun. “I was the one who brought him up, kinda. I was like, I haven’t _ever_ met a boy I want to date, and I kept on talking and you know me, I don’t have any filter! So I told her, I know you want to date Sun, and she said, ehhh, not anymore!”

“What?” Yang had said, head spinning around.

“She told me she thinks he’s just a friend now. Which I said, I think friends are even better than boyfriends and girlfriends anyway! And she kind of laughed, I guess she thinks that’s childish of me.”

“Don’t worry, Ruby,” Yang said. “None of us thinks you’re childish, I promise.”

Ruby sighed. “I know! I just don’t get it when you guys think boys are _hot_ all the time.” She shuddered at the word _hot_ , like she hated saying it. “Weiss thinking Neptune is all dreamy, and Blake saying that Sun looks hot with his shirt off.”

“He _always_ has his shirt off,” Yang said, her eyebrows narrowing.

“I know! I don’t get it. And you… you… Well, you flirt with boys sometimes. Although it’s usually to get something out of them, ha ha!”

Yang turned away.

“Yang?”

“Ruby, can I tell you something?” she said.

“Sure, anything,” Ruby said. “You’re my sister. You can trust me.”

“I…” It felt so dumb to say it, even though she was adept at gossiping and joking. It felt too serious. “I don’t think I like boys either. Actually, girls. Actually, I like girls, is what I mean.”

Ruby didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she said, “Oh.”

“I’m sorry!” Yang said, without really knowing why.

“What?” Ruby said. “That’s OK! It’s not that weird. I bet lots of girls like other girls. You know what, I think that Velvet and Coco from Team CFVY probably like each other! They would be really good together, I bet.”

Yang laughed, a little awkwardly. “They would.”

“Yang, you don’t have to feel bad about anything, OK? And I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, but I bet everyone would be fine with it!”

“Thanks, Ruby,” Yang said. “You’re the best sister ever.”

Ruby had smiled brightly, and then gone straight on into talking about her fight strategy for her upcoming sparring match. Yang wished that other people took things as easily as she did. But most people didn’t like people who were different. Like how they treated Faunus, or guys like Jaune who didn’t seem “manly” enough, or even just kids who were shy.

And she’d heard about men who liked other men before, from the way her dad talked sometimes about his old classmates, and people didn’t seem too fond of them. She figured the same applied for girls.

Blake wouldn’t judge her, she knew that for sure. But Yang could not get her hopes up. Even if Blake wasn’t into Sun, she wasn’t into Yang, either.

Blake emerged from the bathroom, wearing a cozy-looking sweater and a pair of shorts. She looked hopelessly cute. Yang had to stop thinking about her feelings for long intervals, because knowing her, she was going to blurt them out to Blake anytime soon.

Instead of bursting out that Blake looked adorable, she said, “A sweater and shorts? That’s a weird combo.”

Blake rolled her eyes. “It’s comfy. Let me wear my weird clothes.”

“Hey, I wasn’t judging.”

Blake shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m _still_ cold.”

Yang couldn’t stand seeing Blake look cold, and her mouth raced ahead of her brain, just like she knew would happen, and without thinking she said, “Do you wanna get under here with me? My blanket is super warm and cozy, and you can just cuddle with me!”

She nearly winced as soon as she’d said it. _Cuddle?_ She might as well have proposed marriage!

But to her surprise, instead of telling her how weird and awful it sounded, Blake turned a little red. Yang’s heart skipped a beat.

“You sure that’s OK?” Blake asked. Her voice had changed a little, gotten a little strained. Like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to ask.

“Of course it’s OK,” Yang said, a little softer than before. “You’re cold and you’re my friend. Come on.”

Friend. Right. That was all it was.

Blake hesitated, then she walked over and climbed awkwardly into the bed. It was difficult with the bunk-bed arrangement, and Yang already in the bed, but Yang shifted over and Blake maneuvered to her side and then they were both lying there, with the string lights hanging over them and Yang’s favorite fuzzy blanket wrapped around them both.

They were quiet for a moment, both their heads on the pillow, staring up at the dotted gold lights. Outside, the rain poured in shimmery musical notes.

“You know,” Blake said, “the rain’s not so bad when you’re inside and you’re warm.”

“It sounds really peaceful,” Yang agreed.

They laid there for a while longer without talking. Awkwardness and inexplicable feelings aside, this was one of Yang’s favorite things about her and Blake. It was part of why they were such good partners. They could just coexist, understand each other, understand what each other needed. Just lying there quietly meant as much as a conversation.

Blake shifted a little, her legs moving under the covers. She turned over so she was facing Yang. Her legs, which had already been pressed against Yang’s, were even closer now. And they were bare, with only the shorts. Yang was this close to panicking.

She rolled over herself, so she was facing Blake, and made sure not to be too close. It was still pretty damn close.

Blake’s eyes were close to hers, golden brown and soft. There was always that sadness in them. Yang wanted to make her laugh, make it go away for a while.

“This is nice,” Blake sad, and Yang had to catch her breath.

“Yeah?” she said, still trying to cover up her awkward breathing.

“I just. I guess this is normal for you,” Blake said. “You and Ruby and all your friends back home, it’s probably normal to just be comfortable being nice to each other. I used to have that, too, when I was a kid, but it’s been so long that I forgot. I forgot that it’s normal for people to be nice to each other.”

“Blake,” Yang said.

She didn’t care if it made her creepy or it would give away her feelings- she wrapped her arms around Blake, holding her close, breathing in her hair.

“Blake, we are always going to be nice to you,” she said, still hugging her, and she could feel Blake’s arms pressed together against her chest. “You deserve all the niceness in the world. Just by being you. I mean it.”

“How do you always know what to say?” Blake said, leaning in closer to Yang.

“Cause I know you,” Yang said.

Blake unfolded her arms and wrapped them around Yang, squeezing her tightly, and then let her go. Yang fell back a little.

Her arm was still around Blake’s shoulder. She didn’t want to move it.

“You’re right,” Blake said. “I’m warm now.”

“That’s good,” Yang said.

She really didn’t want Blake to leave.

“Can I stay here?” Blake asked.

“Yes,” Yang said instantly, and then her face turned warm. Blake laughed a little. Oh God, did she know? Had she figured it out?

But she didn’t say anything, just curled closer into Yang’s arm, until her head was resting in the crook of Yang’s neck. It was so, so close. There was no way platonic friends did this. Unless they were really close, closer even than her and Blake, right? Yang had old childhood friends that had slept over in her bed before, but even with them, she’d felt bad letting them get too close. She was always worried that she would let her liking-girls feelings loose on them.

Maybe she and Blake both didn’t know what was normal for friends to do.

She laid back, letting Blake curl an arm around her. She was so warm but nearly frozen with worry.

“Is this OK?” Blake asked.

“Yeah,” Yang said, and now it was her voice that was strained. “Yeah, I think… I think it’s been a while since I’ve… I haven’t…”

“It’s cool, Yang, you don’t have to explain everything,” Blake said. “Just relax.”

How was she like this? Incapable of trusting half the time and then, then like _this_ at times too. She could be utterly clueless and do the dumbest, most self-endangering things and then she would do something so right.

Yang relaxed her muscles, her free arm reaching over and brushing the hair out of Blake’s eyes. Blake closed her eyes, letting out a happy sigh.

It was so quiet.

The rain kept streaming down outside the window, and Yang’s breathing fell into rhythm with Blake’s. She felt safe. She hoped Blake felt safe, too- her limbs soft, resting against Yang’s, her breathing warm on Yang’s neck.

Yang felt so unbelievably calm.

Blake was asleep. She brushed Blake’s hair out of her forehead again, then kissed her forehead gently. Then she felt kind of guilty, because Blake hadn’t said that was OK, but also, it was normal to kiss someone on the forehead. Yang just also wanted to kiss her other places, too, but she would wait until Blake wanted it, too, even if that was forever.

Her heart ached. She wanted this to be for real. She wanted Blake to be her girlfriend.

But she liked this, too. She liked being close to Blake as friends. In the end, she just wanted Blake to feel safe and OK and happy, and she knew that meant that she wasn’t a creep- she was just a girl who loved another girl.

Blake was humming in her sleep- or wait- no, she was purring. Yang’s heart melted. That was so cute. God, Blake was so cute. Not that she wasn’t a smart, strong adult, but she was also unbelievably adorable.

And maybe, even for a little while, she felt safe falling asleep in Yang’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for the RWBY fandom, so I hope you all like it! I'm on Tumblr at arielmagicesi and on Twitter at @ArielKalati.


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